Tootfinder

An Alabama jury finds the NYT defamed a college basketball player in a 2023 article that wrongly placed him at a deadly shooting and awards $9.25M in damages (Katie Robertson/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/20/bu…

The New York Times Loses Defamation Lawsuit in Alabama
A 2023 article incorrectly reported that a University of Alabama basketball player was at the scene of a deadly shooting. A jury awarded $9.25 million in damages.

Gift article:
Trump’s Broken Promises, in 11 Charts
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/08/18/opinion/trump-economy-campaign-promises.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6…

Opinion | Trump’s Economic Record Doesn’t Come Close to His Campaign Promises
The president likes to boast about the “greatest economy we’ve ever had.” His record falls far short.

El Niño set to be 'strongest in living memory', says Met Office
https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/c3ekg93vjz9o
Quick! Let’s build more data centres! The billionaires will save us! Oh, and let’s drop more bombs on Brown people. That might help too.

El Niño set to be 'strongest in living memory', says Met Office
Scientists say the growing El Niño weather pattern is an "unprecedented event" and means 2027 is likely to be the world's hottest year on record.

South Korea reopens a program letting AI talent fulfill their military obligations by doing research in corporate labs instead of conventional military service (Jo He-rim/The Korea Herald)
https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10879596

Korea reopens military-service alternative for AI talent - The Korea Herald
South Korea will allow AI researchers to fulfill their military obligations at large corporate laboratories from 2027, reopening a route closed for 14 years. Bu

Nielsen: the World Cup final drew 38.9M viewers on Fox, and 22M on Telemundo; taken together, the US audience size rivaled that of NFL playoff games (Dan Shanoff/The Athletic)
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World Cup final smashes U.S. TV records on both Fox and Telemundo
Spain's Cup-winning triumph over Argentina drew 38.9 million viewers on Fox and 22 million more on Telemundo.

Source: before the Hugging Face incident, OpenAI was negotiating a legally binding deal with Anthropic for the companies to stress-test each other's models (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-anthropic-neared-deal-st…

OpenAI and Anthropic Neared Deal to Stress-Test Each Other’s AI
OpenAI is rethinking a range of safety strategies as it responds to fears from employees and others about the dangers its AI poses. One solution could lie in the recent past. Even before the spate of cybersecurity incidents involving OpenAI’s technology and the dire warnings from industry ...

Anthropic-backed enterprise AI venture Ode is acquiring four-year-old AI consultancy Casper for an undisclosed fee; Ode has 100 staff after buying Fractional (Julia Hornstein/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/anthropics-enterp…

Anthropic’s Enterprise AI Venture Buys Consultancy
A joint venture established by Anthropic and Wall Street firms such as Blackstone has made its first acquisition since its July launch as it looks to boost the growth of Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, among businesses. Anthropic’s venture, Ode, plans to announce Thursday that it is buying an AI ...

Sources: OpenAI is developing features to counter SpaceX's Grok Bot "teammates", and has discussed creating a personal AI assistant to compete with Meta's Muse (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/op

OpenAI Develops Features to Counter Grok Bot, Mulls Response to Meta’s Muse
OpenAI pioneered AI that can take over web browsers and other applications on people’s behalf, and its ChatGPT app brought generative AI to consumers. Now that rivals like SpaceX and Meta are pushing the boundaries by launching personal AI agents that handle multistep tasks, OpenAI is playing ...

Sources: Google is developing a specialized server chip, informally dubbed "Frozen v2", that integrates Gemini AI model blueprints in the silicon, set for 2028 (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-plans-new-…

Google Plans New ‘Frozen’ Chip to Run Its AI Models Much More Efficiently
Google is working on a new server chip that would directly integrate the blueprint of its Gemini AI model, enabling the company to serve its AI models to users much more efficiently, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Google intends the new chip, informally dubbed “ ...

Nine drone startups, including Eric Schmidt-founded Perennial, will split US DoD orders for 60,000 drones in a competition that requires no China-made parts (Steve LeVine/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/dr

Drone Startups Backed By Eric Schmidt and the Trump Family Win the Pentagon’s Latest Competition
Last month, the Pentagon threw up its arms in frustration (metaphorically speaking) when most of the drone startups in competition for $300 million in contracts failed to produce aircraft that met a hard-and-fast specification: The drones could contain no Chinese-made components or materials.